First released in late 2013, Hozier’s low-and-slow barnburner Take Me to Church is a cathartic bluesy shuffler rather incongruously locked into a pop ultra-marathon. Breezing past 300m YouTube views, about to crack 500m Spotify plays and recently crowned 2015’s Song of the Year in a BBC public vote, it’s the sort of unlikely hit analysed by both musicologists and jealous economists. Even its author seems slightly bemused by its ongoing cultural dominance.

Hozier: Hozier – review: folky blues filled with haunting melodies

Read more

Take Me to Church may have provided a solid foundation but the rest of Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s success is down to good, old-fashioned graft. Despite almost two solid years on the road, the 25-year-old from Wicklow seems in fine fettle and good voice: gracious, self-effacing and, with his lean frame and emphatic footstomps, rather striking on stage. Squint and it could be Ross Poldark.

Songs from his eponymous debut album, seem well-suited to the Usher Hall’s grand, gothic setting, the chain-gang moans and evil organ blasts reverberating through the sold-out crowd. Even if you were to strip out his six-piece band – including a cellist and two gifted backing vocalists – there’s a sense that Hozier’s songwriting would stand up. It’s evidenced by the spare, haunting duet In a Week, where he exchanges spidery guitar and vocal lines with guest singer Karen Cowley about reuniting on another plain while their bodies are gnawed by foxes.

What this gig lacks is any sense of where Hozier wants to go next. The only detour from his album – not counting leading an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday to one of his backing band – is a syncopated cover of McCartney’s Blackbird that sounds a little too cute, more Weather Report than Howlin’ Wolf. But even if he decided to go full jazz-fusion for his second album, the staggering response to the opening piano chords of Take Me to Church suggests an enormous, willing congregation would follow.